


Esoteric Contagion

by teacuptaako



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Memory Loss, Amnesia, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacuptaako/pseuds/teacuptaako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wakes up with a note stuck to his forehead that reads, “You traded your memory in a spell. It was worth it.” The note is signed George Ross. He wonders if that’s his name.</p><p>In which things are lost and gained and remembered and forgotten, in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cancer

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warnings for profanity, reference to sex, and themes relating to mental health.

He wakes up with a note stuck to his forehead that reads, “You traded your memory in a spell. It was worth it.” The note is signed George Ross. He wonders if that’s his name.

There’s a notebook on the dresser of what seems to be his hotel room and on the first page, in the same scrawling handwriting, is a plan titled ‘AFTER WAKING UP.’ George reads it and reads it again and when he stands up to get his phone his legs give out and he deftly falls on his back.

He stays there, for a while. 

There’s a section in the notebook full of jot notes all under the heading ‘INFORMATION,’ which seems to be miscellaneous facts that he deemed important enough to write down so he’d have some sense of self when he woke up. Notes included in this are: you hate spaghetti, people named Shane are never any good, listen to The Beatles (they’re your favourite) and avoid Panic! At the disco (not your thing), you can’t cook- but maybe learn?

Nothing is very interesting and George (?) thinks that if he had to lose his memory for some kind of magic, at least he wasn’t anybody worth missing. He thinks that doing what the notebook says is really his only option at this point. Presumably he isn’t being pranked by anybody because this is a lot of effort to put together, and even if he is, George doesn’t particularly care at this point, and he’s too tired. He thinks that spells must be exhausting, or perhaps living is.

He wants to know about magic, about his twisty writing, about the suitcase sitting pre-packed on his bed with plane tickets on top of them, wants to know why ‘Don’t call Spencer,’ is in capital letters while, ‘There’s an apartment and a job set up in New York,’ is in the margins like he wrote it in as an afterthought.

His name doesn’t fit right. The notebook is old and worn, like this has been planned for a long while, or maybe put off.

There’s an ugly vest hanging on the back of the door that seems to be made out of fake roses and it hurts to look at so he leaves it there when he exits for the airport.

 On the flight he reads through the notebook twice, finding details about the job in New York (he’s a writer, apparently, though there’s a page about a novel he’s evidently halfway through the manuscript for), and the apartment, which doesn’t sound promising (his past self described it as ‘rustic’). There’s also a page titled ‘JUST IN CASE,’ and there’s a long list of phone numbers with names that don’t strike any bells and nearly all have cautionary notes next to them (Patrick: only if you have a death wish). In the same section is a short synopsis of each person in his contacts (Gerard: old sort-of acquaintance, he might text but don’t answer) and it’s sort of disheartening to see how many people he doesn’t talk to anymore, or shouldn’t reply too, or somehow cut off contact from in some way.

The novel he’s writing is called “The dolor of Fletcher Aaron,” and he can’t bring himself to read it just yet.

When the plane lands, George discovers he’s scared of planes landing. He clings to the armrests as they hit down on the strip, his knuckles slowly turning white, thinking stop, stop, please, please fucking stop.

 He gives the taxi driver the address of his apartment and when the driver says, “Welcome home?” George answers with, “Thanks,” and he isn’t sure if he’s being genuine or not. On the departure board there’d been a flight to Vegas, and for one bizarre instant he’d been struck with this almost-longing-sort-of-fear that he’s deliberately not letting himself think about anymore because he doesn’t want to know and he desperately does, which is worse.

 Apartments are something George dimly remembers owning in the past, a mattress on the floor comes to mind, but the one he has here is surprisingly okay. There’s a bookshelf that’s stuffed full and a kitchen that seems well stocked for somebody who can’t cook, the bed is squishy, the bathroom is clean, and he’s got a TV. A rug that makes his feet want to never move again lies on the floor in front of a couch that looks lumpy and ugly but is actually surprisingly comfortable. On the counter of the kitchen is an envelope full of typed papers (from himself?) detailing local spots around New York that he likes, and how to pay rent, and other information that George is grateful to have but sort of worried about knowing.

 It’s a struggle to refer to himself as George. It’s also a struggle to unpack boxes of things he doesn’t know why he has (vests, weird hats, notebook after notebook after notebook, a laptop with nothing on it but a bunch of weird search filters he decides not to mess with, a phone full of numbers he can’t call, a pink feather boa) but he does it anyway, and then he orders pizza that he ends up hating because he doesn’t remember that he dislikes pineapple. He can’t remember his birthday so he decides it’s today and goes to bed early as a celebration.

 He- George- falls asleep early and wakes up late. The notebook says he has work he’s supposed to be at in ten minutes and he barely makes it on time, though when he gets up to leave later, he suspects he could’ve stayed home and not a soul would have noticed. His workspace is a tiny desk in the corner of a whole floor full of identical stations, writing a column that, at least, he has licence over. Unfortunately, although he can pick what he writes about, the only person who reads it is his editor. There’s a plant on his desk that could be an Aloe Vera or just some weird cactus and it’s in a pot that takes up more space on his desk then is really practical so he takes it home. That night he wonders if it was him that bought the plant or if he just, on his second day of awareness, was already stealing things. Maybe that’s the kind of person he is. Maybe that’s good, but probably it isn’t.

 Four more days of work and then on Saturday he goes systematically through his bookshelf. There’s a lot of poetry volumes with a comforting weight to them, and thick tomes about magic that he saves for later, and skinny novels with covers that look like they were made by people with broken hearts. There’s a lot of Chuck Palahniuk, including two battered copies of Invisible Monsters, one of which is signed and the other is covered in coffee stains. Also on the shelf are a few anthologies of short stories, a couple books of art prints, and a good mix of hardcover and paperback. George sets the magic books on the kitchen table with two notebooks that are written in some kind of language he doesn’t remember how to read anymore, and then starts to read one of his Arthur Rimbaud books- there’s three anthologies, he’s practically guaranteed to like the poems.

 He gets to ‘The Foolish Virgin,’ and devours, "I am a widow... - I used to be a widow... - oh, yes, I used to be very serious in those days, I wasn't born to become a skeleton!... He was a child or almost... His delicate, mysterious ways enchanted me. I forgot all my duties in order to follow him. What a life we lead! True life is lacking. We are exiles from this world, really - I go where he goes, I have to. And lots of times he gets mad at me, at me, poor sinner. That Devil! He really is a Devil, you know, and not a man. He says: "I don't love women. Love has to be reinvented, we know that.”

George memorizes the passage, and as he’s lying in bed later he’s still thinking about it, tracing, ‘Reinvent love,’ onto his pillow with long bony fingers. Magic is terrifying, he knows, and so is love, and he doesn’t know a single person on Planet Earth that he cares about anymore, including himself.

Nightmares come but they’re so unfocused it’s like somebody filmed his dream from an old camera. George’s facing a mob of some sort, all of them shouting back at him. Somebody on his left is screaming and there’s a furious driving drumbeat that matches George’s heartbeat and then goes faster, forcing his heart to keep pace or give out. The mob surges up and the cymbal crashes and immediately George’s more terrified then he ever has been in his entire life, and he wakes up sweating.

In the morning he goes to work and buys a muffin from the bakery down the street from his office. The man who sells it to him has blue dyed hair and when he leans over the counter to say he likes George’s shirt, he’s smiling with straight white teeth. The muffin smells fresh. A phone number is written on it’s bag and both George and the man know that he’s not going to call it, although George suspects that he doesn’t love women either and the Devil thing needs more research.

A week later George is at the library and he’s trying to find another job so he can quit the journalist deal. The ads in the paper offer things like, “SALES ASSOSIATE POSITION,” or, “RESTURAUNT CLERK NEEDED.” He folds The New York Post and tucks it into his bag because for some reason he enjoys the idea of owning out-dated newspapers, and when he leans down for his messenger bag, he sees it’s already floating up to him. Not smoothly- it’s a jerky bumping ascent- but it’s definitely happening and it’s definitely magic. George moves the left hand he’s got pointing at it, and the bag follows dizzily for a few moments before thumping back to the ground with a loud enough smack that the nearest librarian frowns over her glasses at him. He barely gives her any notice over the crashing of his heart in his chest and suddenly it’s like he ran a marathon because he can feel sweat on his temple and it’s good he’s sitting down because there’s a definite chance his legs aren’t up to their job right now.

Messenger bag discarded at his front door, George spends the entire night pouring over the magic books and taking reading back his old notes. When it’s time to leave for work he hasn’t slept at all and he makes his coffee come to him instead of the other way around.

As he works he reflects that this is something that he obviously used to be very good at, and that must be why it’s coming back so easily. He thinks it’s like riding a bike, except he doesn’t ever remember riding a bike, and- actually- that’s pretty fitting too. On the way out the door he gives his boss two weeks notice and makes a mental note to bring the Aloe Vera (?) back tomorrow.

When he starts to rediscover magic, George knows there’s been some sort of shift. He still doesn’t remember his past but now he doesn’t lay awake at night trying to remember it. He’s got unpacked cardboard boxes full of possessions from a veritable stranger, but he moves them into his closet so he doesn’t need to look at them anymore. While he leaves the journalist job, he gets a new one running the blog for some band, and it’s actually an improvement both in pay and hours because he’s really got no need to leave his apartment anymore. He still doesn’t see anyone but now he doesn’t want to.

He’s still miserable, but now it’s funny.

George never returns the Aloe Vera. Instead he flies it around his room with a shaking hand and watches it make shadows on his kitchen floor and he worries he’ll drop it and break the pot but instead lands it and spends the next four hours feeling like an airplane pilot. Eventually he’s got it down to an easy habit and doesn’t need to point to things anymore in order for them to move where he wants them, though he’s still working on multiple things at the same time and hasn’t ventured into other kinds of magic- though he has read about them. George supposes he’s intimidated by how much he probably knows already but he also supposes he’s lazy.

One day the man with the blue hair asks George’s name, and, when he gets it, says, “My brother’s named George. Good name. It means Farmer, you know? One who tends the earth? Gerogie fucking hates it but I’m called Richard so he doesn’t have a single leg to stand on. Dick. Jesus Christ.” Rich rests his weight on the counter and continues, “The coolest George, uh, the patron saint of England, maybe, was best known for fighting this fire breathing dragon. Think it symbolized Satan, or something. Sick shit.”

George takes the muffin and the information and he still hates his name but he looks up the patron saint of England. When he’s depicted it’s usually with the dragon Rich mentioned that’s supposed to represent God’s enemies. St. George was a Roman soldier despite not believing in their gods and was killed on April 23rd, 303, after torture, because he refused to denounce his faith.

Sick shit.

Veg Out is a small independent grocery store close to George’s apartment that he decides to become a patron of after he finds their exotic foods section. When the girl at the check out rings up his rambutan, durian, annatto seeds, and plantain, she grins at him with a look in her eye that George can’t really decipher. It’s the next day when he runs into her again, this time with ramen, carrots, skittles, and frozen peas, that he gets it.

“Cooking is impossible,” he defends, “I’ve never seen a durian before now in my entire life.”

She laughs at him and throws him a pack of wasabi-flavoured gumballs that she then refuses to charge him for. Her nametag identifies her as Leia and she’s stuck a sticker of the Star Wars character of the same name to it. “Call me next time you’re hungry. My girlfriend’s a great chef and I’m the kind of culinary master who’s got Pizza 73’s number on speed dial.”

When he walks away he’s humming the song that was playing over the store music system. In his notebooks it says he isn’t much of a music person, but it’s nice to find an exception. Google searching the lyrics (turn off the lights and turn off the shyness) teaches him that the song is called, “Of all the gin joints in all the world,” and the band, Fall Out Boy, is hilariously the band he runs the blog for. George clicks around and buys himself tickets for the next time they’re in New York (in about three weeks time) and listens to all their albums about seven times each while causing blue and green sparks to fly from his fingertips and cast shapes on the wall like fireworks in front of a mirror. Possibly, probably, he knew about this band before he lost his memory, because he finds himself mouthing along to the lyrics of chorus’ he hasn’t heard before and there’s a strange feeling in his chest like somebody heavy is sitting on it.

Later he texts Leia and Rich _fall out boy in 3 weeks want tickets?_ And thinks that it’s kind of nice to have people to make plans with, even if they’re just theoretical. Rich answers _luv fob hell yeah_ and Leia is apparently going already with her girlfriend, so they make plans to carpool to the venue together. Leia’s also headed to Vegas for some reason and George asks if she can bring him back a newspaper because he needs one to go with The New York Post he’s already got in his possession. She answers, _no problem g2g xoxo_ , and George forces himself to put the phone down before he does something stupid like ask to go with her.

It’s weird to have a sound that goes with the band he’s already been representing for about four months now. He gets a little free with the nightly update this time, loosing a bit of snark ( _new merch available v stylish wow_ ). While the blog does have a fast moving comment section, George hadn’t really explored it very much before. Now he does, little xoxo’s and smiley faces and dissing commenters being rude to other fans. It’s oddly freeing.

Entire day’s been odd, really. George lies on his floor like he had in the hotel room he woke up in and conjures an illusion of a dragon lying on his bed, wide leathery wings curled over itself like a sleeping bat, teeth long and thin. When he hauls himself up to go to bed the dragon dissolves into smoke and the smell of sulphur.

Since he’s been having a weird day anyway that’s felt full of allusions to a book he’s never read, or references to a life somebody else led, George opens his laptop and reads what he’s written so far in his novel.

The dolor of Fletcher Aaron is about the two identical twins, Fletcher and Aaron, who are not only are able to switch places without anybody noticing, but also share the same friend group who aren’t able to tell them apart and parents who don’t know which is which unless they’re wearing their assigned colours (it was agreed when they were very young that Fletcher would wear green and Aaron would wear blue, only the two twins would often switch who wore what colour without anybody realizing). Fletcher Aaron sounds like just one name and it was theirs. When they have a fight and end up going to different collages, they reunite at Christmas to realize that they both thought their name was Fletcher and nobody is sure who is Aaron. 

Last line past George wrote:

_Fletcher is standing in the kitchen and looking at his brother and they’re both wearing green golf shirts and it’s less like identical twins and more like a mirror stands between them; they are separate people but only in theory._

He nods off to sleep without meaning to, mulling over his story and feeling ridiculously proud of himself. He’ll need to get back into the rhythm of writing again, obviously, but there’s a familiarity and pride in the words that he hadn’t expected to find. In the morning he responds to a few more comments on Fall Out Boy’s blog, posts something about looking forward to the New York show ( _and definitely not just because the person managing this blog is going…. moving on_ ), and answers Rich’s invitation to hang out in the negative ( _working 2day sorry dude_ ) and congratulates Leia on a safe flight ( _glad ur plane didnt crash_ ). Spells are an area of magic he’s been meaning to look at for a while now and he does have plans to research after lunch, but right now he wants to work on his book.

George laughs to himself and the Aloe Vera.  
His book.  
God.

Hours pass in a matter of minutes until his stomach growls and his hand cramps and it turns 1:50. George saves all he’s written about seven times out of paranoia, then settles into his couch and pulls the nearest thick volume of spells into his lap.

Magic has basic structure that George seems to have completely disregarded. According to this book there’s usually a kind of catalyst, channelled through an object. Examples given are things like a wand (cliché), an instrument (which gives him pause), art (he snickers to himself), or a card deck (maybe not). Mystic force is intentionally channelled through this catalyst through high amounts of focus and intent, and, with the proper spell, magic occurs. Spells are Latin phrases, incantations, deliberate hand movements, and specific chord progressions. They’re burning the right incense in the right place and writing in the right lighting. George has a tome called, “Wizardry for Experts,” cataloguing some of the better known ones in addition to rules for making your own, but, as the name suggests, most of the book is dedicated to advanced and dark spellwork.

Muscle memory picks up and soon George can feel his fingers phantom taut over something wooden, a guitar maybe, and a sensation as if all his molecules are being ripped in different directions.

Spells that are horribly strong or dangerous or both, need sacrifice. Small sacrifices for small spells, say a drop of blood, big sacrifices for the spells that need the most energy and cause the most effect.

Certainty, one’s entire memory is a sacrifice.

George drops the book and opens his window onto the New York street bustle. It’s raining and the water whips over his face and shirt, big droplets splattering their way past him and onto the rug. He was either very in love or hated himself. He was either a martyr or a fucking idiot. He’d like to think that he’d do it again but he suspects not, and he’d like to undo it but he gets a flash of guilty-hot stopping him in his tracks. It’s difficult to say if love lasts when only one half of the partnership remembers, and even more difficult if you’re leaving everything up to scrawled instructions from the idiot who put everybody in the situation in the first place.

Rain turns George from a man into an abstract painting. 

Coldness creeps through him long after the window closes again and he’s lying in bed imagining shapes on the plaster ceiling. That one’s a guitar, that one’s a dragon, that one’s a muffin.

Leia gets back three days later with a newspaper and slightly more money then she left with. 

“Vegas is incredible,” she gushes, “New York at night is slightly unreal, but Vegas- it’s like a different- I can’t explain it. There’s neon everywhere! My hotel was practically composed out of neon signs! Like, stacked on each other!” she giggles here and rocks back onto the chair she’s sitting in. George and Rich sit across from her and they’re a little triangle in the window of the bakery Rich works at and the other two frequent.

“Did you go to the Bellagio Fountains?” George asks, “They’re beautiful.”

Rich flashes his bright white teeth. His hair matches Leia’s shirt. “You’ve been?" 

“I. Well-“

“-And in the day it’s, well, less- vivid? It’s like, there’s something. Off. Like at night there’s this fabulous illusion and then during the day you’ve got the shell. Oh, Georgie, newspaper.” 

“Please never call me Georgie again.” George sighs, reaching for it. “I bet nobody called that English guy Georgie.”

Rich and Leia start discussing the worst kinds of people to get saddled sitting next to on airplanes and George flicks open the paper. The headlines are things like, “IT DOESN’T LOOK GOOD FOR DEMOCRATS,” and, “STATE SENATOR PUTS DOGS IN SPOTLIGHT.” The front-page story is, “CAPITAL CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEERS HONOURED AT BISHOP GORMAN HIGH SCHOOL PARTY.” It’s sort of funny how little there is to talk about in such a busy place. George lingers over the paper for a little while Rich and Leia’s voices (one dry and amused, the other bubblier) wash over him as ambience. None of the comics are very interesting and he skims the entertainment section bemusedly. Cobra Starship apparently played and they were apparently very good. When he’s delicately picked his way through Sports, understanding even less then he had in entertainment, he flips to the back and goes through Obituaries.

Vanessa Florence Righter – July 22th 2006  
_Vanessa was a beautiful person who we will miss dearly. We know the community will suffer form the loss of her patience and dedication, and wish the best to her students at Junior Hockey. Her husband, Mark Gregory Righter, succeeds her._  

Louis Kirk – July 23th 2006  
_Cook, soccer player, loved dearly, father to three._

Natasha Greenwald - July 25th 2006  
_It matters not that she is gone for we will remember her forever. The kind of woman that made everybody welcome. We hope, in turn, she will be welcomed into Heaven._

George Hammond Ross Junior – July 28th 2006  
_Succeeded by his son, George Ryan Ross III (1986), from Panic! At the Di_

George drops the newspaper and stands up so quickly he slams his knee on the underside of the table and has to clutch at Rich’s arm to stop him from crashing to the ground. Rich starts making soothing noises and trying to lead George back into his seat.

“George- damn. You okay buddy?” Rich pulls the newspaper up to his face to see what he’d been reading and George yanks it back.

“Georgie?” Leia asks. Her eyes are wide and she’s clutching her coffee almost as tightly as George’s grabbing the newspaper. “Bad news?”

 George Hammond Ross Junior – July 28th 2006  
_Succeeded by his son, George Ryan Ross III (1986), from Panic! At the Disco, although his whereabouts are currently unknown after last year’s accident. Ryan has written multiple songs about his father on his band’s first album (A fever you can’t sweat out), which should be listened to for a more complete obituary. George will be buried at Palm Eastern Cemetery._

“My Dad’s dead.”

Leia gasps and Rich makes another grasp for the newspaper, making it this time. “Shit, George. I’m sorry.”

“No, I. We weren’t. Close.” This is true, but he’s also crying. Leia tucks him tight to his chest and he wants to squirm away because if she holds him any longer he’ll want her to never let go. His vision’s gone all tunnelled and he can dimly see Rich’s mouth dropping in surprise as he reads the obituary. He squirms away from Leia before it gets embarrassing and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes, appreciating that both Rich and Leia pretend not to notice when it comes away damp.

His fingers are brittle and his father is dead. The sun’s hot against the back of his neck and his name’s Ryan.

“I should’ve said, uh. But I’m. I don’t have any memory, and it’s.” He stops talking when the back of his throat starts to burn because he’d rather not talk at all then sniffle his way through it, and when he feels himself get a bit more under control he continues. “I think my name’s actually Ryan.” 

George Ross is definitely dead.  
Ryan Ross probably isn’t.

Leia hugs him again and Rich claps him on the shoulder. When Leia talks her voice sounds strangely choked up. “Okay. Ryan. Do you want us to walk you home? How are you feeling right now? You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be but you could tell us to leave, no hard feelings.”

Ryan doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know. On one hand he’s upset that his Dad’s dead, but he doesn’t remember the guy. It’s like a celebrity death. He’s more upset that his past self lied about his name, his band, and his identity, making him wonder how much he can trust anything in those notebooks. The lies must have been for a good reason (maybe if he remembers anything important he’ll undo the spell?) but they piss him off. Everything he thought he knew about himself feels like it’s been called into question, and it feels like somebody told him what he thought was green is actually blue, or like waking up after dreaming an entire day.

What happens next is this: Ryan walks home and powers off his phone. He sticks his father’s obituary to his fridge with a magnet in the shape of an exclamation mark. He stays in his apartment for a week and writes thirty pages of ‘The dolor of Fletcher Aaron.’ At some point he gets hungry and he makes ramen noodles but only eats about half of them. He goes through the notebooks and crosses out all the things he knows for a fact aren’t true with a red pen and then goes about testing the rest of them. He listens to The Beetles and is slightly underwhelmed, and queues up Panic! but loses his nerve and closes the tab. 

He makes himself spaghetti and it’s fucking delicious.

That nightmare comes back, with the mob and the shouting, but this time it’s from the point of view of somebody in the crowd. Ryan can see himself standing on some kind of elevated platform- but not very well; it’s very blurry- with three other shadowy figures. Music plays angrily from no identifiable source, a frenzied sound of which there can only be snatches of words from the singer. There’s feedback ringing through the air and it’s freezing outside, cold air nipping at the hands of the person in the crowd, a hat pulled low over their ears. As Ryan watches, something gets hurled up at one of the shadow figures on the platform next to him and the figure turns from a collection of ink black into a crystal sculpture that then shatters into pieces the second that the object hits them. Crystalline ice fragments scatter all over the platform and start to melt; suddenly the drumbeat starts up again and this time it’s more like a frantic crashing then cohesive music. Something twangs and snaps. Dream Ryan’s holding a guitar and all the strings are snapping one by one, wrapping themselves around his wrists. The person in the mob shouts and cheers and all of a sudden there is music, but nobody is singing anymore. Ryan wakes up and he casts spells all over his bedroom to ward off evil spirits and malevolent thoughts but he strongly suspects they won’t do anything. 

Ryan takes off every single search filter on his laptop because what does he have to lose at this point and he ventures outside for the first time in nine days to buy himself a guitar. When he’s done moping he turns his phone back on to tell Rich and Leia that they’re still on for Fall Out Boy in four days and apologizes for disappearing. He goes through his contacts again and he still doesn’t recognize any of the names but now he wonders what would’ve happened if he’d called them, texted Gerard The Sort Of Acquaintance Whom He Shouldn’t Answer.

It’s not that he’s mad at himself, because he still thinks he probably did the right thing. It’s just that there must’ve been a better way to go about it. It’s just that he was the only person he knew in the entire world, and now not even that.

Fall Out Boy’s blog is getting more hits then ever, which is kind of cool, Ryan thinks. Logically he’s aware that nobody actually cares about who moderates the band site, but comments are addressing him more directly now: _whoever’s the moderator on here is srsly funny lmao; dude w/blog job killing it; fuck drag me mod; is pete answering these questions these are v pete answers_ and it’s kind of cool to feel like he’s engaged in the community. The day he updates at 1:30 in the morning with the post, “ _ok so fob is ok but has anyone heard from Michael Jackson lately_ ,” the website goes insane, and Ryan spends an entire night scrolling through the comments and laughing at the responses.

Spellwork is going smoother too. He tried casting a spell on his couch to turn it green using the catalyst of his guitar, playing a couple chord progressions he whipped up on the spot, and ended up making his entire apartment neon lime. Ryan’s quite a bit more powerful then he realized when he does stuff properly, but it took so long to fix everything that he’s stuck mainly to his hand waving stuff. He’s decided to not look up the memory thing, because recent events have proved that there’s really no point. Ryan used to have a band. Panic! At the Disco. There was an accident and then he went missing. Putting two and two together is simple and four isn’t a particularly lucky number.

Leia’s much mentioned girlfriend drives everyone down to the venue. Her name’s Jade and she smokes out the window on the two occasions she actually stops when instructed, and the music she plays is so loud that Ryan can hardly hear Rich yelling in his ear about the songs he hopes are on the set list. Her driving takes a very permissive approach to things like stop signs, speed limits, and pedestrians. Leia looks at Jade like she’s the moon and Ryan’s pretty sure he wrote a song about that sort of thing, before.

“MY LIGHT IS ELECTRIC!” Rich screams along, and Leia shrieks in joy while Jade takes turns so fast Ryan digs his fingernails into his palms there’s white marks when he unfolds them.

Waiting in line Ryan sees people watching him like they’re trying not to. There’s a girl wearing eye makeup so thick it looks like she’s got a black eye wearing a shirt with a single exclamation mark on it that keeps twisting around to goggle and then go confer with her friends, like they’re pretty sure it’s him but not one hundred percent. Ryan hears snatches of his name from the boys behind them (-Ross? From- Rya- No- not him- it is! Fuck, it is! No-) and murmurs of it from either side. Everybody is too polite to say something, but too curious to say silent. Rich stands behind Ryan and although Ryan can’t see him, he knows he’s glaring. It’s nice of him. Leia doesn’t seem to have noticed anything, but Jade keeps sending quizzical looks Ryan’s way. She seems to be expecting him to do something but Ryan has no idea where to even start. Coming here was probably a bad idea.

Wiggling out from in front of Rich when they get into the venue is surprisingly easy, and easier still is saying something about the bathroom and vanishing down the nearest dark hallway he could find. His head’s ringing and he can’t tell if it’s because of the outrageously loud opening band or a natural headache. He runs across a short guy wearing a vest and tie with, interestingly, fingerless gloves, emerging from a bundle of techs, who flinches back from him with a horrified slack jaw mouth.

“Oh my God,” says the guy, “Fuck you.”

Ryan shrugs and keeps walking. He must be in a restricted area. He only gets a couple steps before there’s a sudden hand on his shoulder, and now it’s Ryan’s turn to flinch.

The guy meets his eyes angrily and then deflates, his hand dropping from Ryan’s shoulder. “You’re not here. You can’t be.” 

“Sorry, is this restricted? I’m just looking for the washroom.” Ryan steps back a bit. “I can. Just-“

Dude hisses through his teeth and Ryan freezes. “Yes. No.” Gloves guy shifts his weight from foot to foot agitatedly, before nodding decisively. “Follow me.” He spins and heads back through the techs toward the stage.

Ryan watches him go then continues down the hall he’d been heading previously. He finds a washroom and runs cold water over his face until he doesn’t feel like he’s overheating quite so much and sneaks his way back to Leia, Jade, and Rich. Leia and Jade are jumping along with and Rich has his phone out, texting someone or another. Ryan slips beside them again just as the house lights flash to signal the next song.

While Ryan doesn’t recognize the band, they’re pretty good. The important thing is that they’re loud and angry. Rich sidles up against Ryan’s side and tucks his hands in the back of Ryan’s pockets, grinning winningly when Ryan scowls at him and shrugs away. Rich is a little difficult to deal with after a couple drinks, and- what? There’s no way he’s drunk already. Ryan either wandered for longer then he thought he did or Rich doesn’t like to waste time. Something about that makes Ryan deeply uncomfortable and he doesn’t want to know why.

Eventually Fall Out Boy get on the stage, and Ryan has a little miniature heart attack because angry glove guy that Ryan totally blew off is the lead singer. A second later, the reality of his situation hits and _he blew off Patrick Stump can he die right now_. Beside Patrick is the bassist, a short man with huge brown eyes Ryan can see from all the way in the audience. He’s bouncing slightly and grinning in a way almost manic. Ryan’s pretty sure his name is Wentz, maybe? And then Joe’s the guitar player on Patrick’s other side, hair almost as big as Wentz’s eyes, making Andrew (?) the drummer on the raised platform with a twisting mass of tattoos on his chest. 

Rich tugs on Ryan’s sleeve and leers, shouting, “HELL YEAH, DUDE!” over the starting chords. Ryan rips his arm away and elbows Jade in the side by accident. Judging from the scowl on her face, she doesn’t hear his apology. Rich’s breath smells like a bottle depot. Ryan’s breath catches in his chest and for a peculiar second he feels like he’s about to be punched. He turns back to the stage and tries to focus again, unnerved.

Wentz doesn’t leave Patrick alone for most of the concert. He’s running around Patrick in circles, leaning over and playing to him, singing in the same microphone, or hurling himself around the stage like he’s trying to fight the air. Andrew’s a great drummer, as far as Ryan can tell. It’s easy to forget about the others and just let his eyes rest on the man, crashing his drums with at least as much force as Wentz, just more directed. Joe’s probably the least interesting to watch but it’s immediately obvious he’s a great guitar player. Ryan can’t make out his fingers very well but he can see how fast they’re moving. There’s electricity in the air that’s making Ryan want to jump, to move, and so he does.

Songs fly through the air and for forty minutes Ryan forgets everything except how it feels to ride on the back of a tsunami. 

There’s bodies everywhere and somebody’s so close to him Ryan can feel the rasp of their exhale down his neck so he turns to tell them off and accidently presses even nearer. The girl grins sharply and Ryan finds himself grinning back – there’s something otherworldly about this, right now, the neon and the noise and the curve in her body – and they dance together for a song. She gets dragged away somewhere by the moving crowd and Patrick starts to sing the start to ‘Of All the Gin Joints in All of The World,’ so Ryan can’t care too much. 

When they end the concert and the lights go out the crowd screams and Ryan yells with them. He can’t see Jade, Leia, or Rich, although he searches for about five minutes, but he can see the girl he’d danced with and she sees him back.

Lips curl, hips sway. Ryan and his dance partner exchange a look of mutual interest and equal suggestion and Ryan’s just taken a step towards her when a hand closes on his arm and yanks him backwards. 

Ryan twists and clenches his free hand into a fist to punch Rich, if he tries anything when he’s drunk, Ryan’s gonna-

“Ross! Rossy, fuck!”

Whoever’s grabbing him tugs and Ryan clumsily spins around. It’s the bassist, standing with one hand clenched on Ryan’s forearm and the other twisted into a fist and winding up. Managing to duck the punch, just barely, Ryan rips his arm out of Wentz’ grip and scans the immediate area for Leia or Jade. Somebody sober needs to drive him home, this instant. People are still mingling around but they’re starting to conglomerate around them, kids with Fall Out Boy shirts taking pictures and bunches of friends all in groups pressing forward with scraps of paper for Wentz to sign held out like sacrificial offerings. Ryan feels trapped and so out of his depth it’s kind of outrageous.

“GEORGE!” Leia screams. Ryan whips toward the sound and sees her on her tiptoes behind a group of teenagers, waving at him with a t-shirt that says, ‘Don’t trip, Fall Out!’ and keeps nearly hitting a scowling Jade with it. “GEORGIE, OVER HERE!”

Gratefully he starts to shove through the crowd towards her, so relieved to see her that he isn’t even upset she got his name wrong, but Wentz grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him back. Ryan takes larger steps and flaps a hand behind him to try and get the guy off, but then the drummer is standing in front of him and Joe to the left, and when Ryan tries to go right (he can see Leia pushing frantically at the kids in front of her, trying to get to him) the kid with the exclamation point shirt from the line materializes underfoot.

“Could I, um, get a picture?” she asks.

“What? No, I’m, -Let go!”

The drummer grabs his arm, much stronger then Wentz, and starts to pull him through the crowd towards the backstage door. Ryan hits at him and screams- there’s people everywhere, watching them- Joe clamps a hand over his mouth and Wentz seems to be doubling back (for Leia? God, he hopes she’s okay); Patrick is waiting by the door and shoves them through it irritably but Ryan can’t see anything through the spinning of his head and the weird grimy salt of Joe’s fingers.

“You didn’t follow me,” Patrick says, reproachfully. Ryan shoves off Joe and Andrew lets go of him just in time to open the door for Wentz returning- without Leia, interestingly but mostly worryingly.

Ryan can feel himself trembling. If he goes into shock then he’ll hit the anxiety high score. “In my defense, I didn’t know you were the lead singer.” He goes for funny and hits hysterical, great.

Patrick actually flinches at that. Wentz is still vibrating out of some residual stage nerves or something, and Andrew and Joe look at each other before quickly glancing away. Ryan takes a hesitant step back towards the door, but Wentz, still in front of it, barks a keen laugh and scrubs a hand through his short hair- almost like he’s the one who’s nervous. 

“Ry, fuck. Ok,” Wentz starts. He looks so earnest and apologetic and Ryan wants to throw up.

“Before you, uh. I was. If we knew each other before I won’t remember it. I’ve got amnesia? Sorry, erm. And I need to get back to Leia so. Can you move?”

Wentz doesn’t, and instead of drooping, he looks wound even tighter. His left hand starts rubbing up and down his opposite arm and the skin there is red raw. He opens his mouth and closes it again before actually getting the words out. “She called you Georgie. Do you go by? George? You can’t do that, you-“

“Pete!” snaps Patrick, “Stop! Ok.” He turns to Ryan fiercely and jabs at him with a gloved hand. “I’m sorry. This must be sudden for you. We did know each other, and we’ve been looking for you for a while. We’re glad you’re doing well. You really know how to vanish when you want to.”

Ryan regards him, terror lessoning. “I’ve got a phone. Presumably you could just call it. Instead of waiting around on the off chance I show up to one of your shows.”

Wentz- Pete- snorts. “When was the last time you paid your phone bill, asshole? And you always end up at one of our shows, you even blogged ab-“ 

“-What?”

“-Doesn’t matter.” Andrew interjects. “Ryan. You do go by Ryan, right?”

“…Yes” 

“Good. So, we’ve got some friends who want to see you? Pete went and told them you were here. And we can catch up. There’s a lot of stuff you’ve missed, being gone and all. You said you got amnesia? What happened?”

Ryan eyes the drummer up and down before deciding he’s serious. “I can’t remember.”

Behind him, Joe snickers. “Yeah, Andy.”

“Look, I really need to go.” Ryan takes another step toward the door, but more firm this time. He’s standing in front of Pete; one hand reaching to the doorknob and the other curling into a fist because it’s really looking like the guy isn’t going to move and Ryan doesn’t feel safe at all, when somebody new crashes into the room. Pete mutters ‘thank GOD,’ and slumps back against the door. Ryan glares at him and then turns to the new arrival.

He’s got soft blonde hair sticking all to one side, and he’s twirling drumsticks agitatedly. One of his legs jitters and his eyes widen as he sees Ryan at the same time Ryan sees him. There’s something… he’s… Ryan reaches out a tentative hand, lightly grabbing the end of one of his drumsticks and taking it for himself. 

“I know you,” Ryan says, because he knows, irrevocably, that he does. There’s a familiarity in those callouses on his hands, the weight in his hips. His eyes are magic. Ryan doesn’t know his name. 

“Yeah, you do.” he’s crying. He’s closer, he’s warm against Ryan, his arms are so strong and Ryan wants to cling to them so he takes a step back beside Patrick. “I’m Spencer? Spencer Smith. Brendon misses you,” Spencer smiles. More footsteps are coming down the hallway, one set bouncy and running and the other more solid but equally rushed. 

Again there’s a shift that isn’t. Spencer wasn’t missed but now he’s here. Ryan was missed and he doesn’t want to be here. There’s a light fizzing weakly above them and it crackles like it’s about to plunge the entire world into black. Ryan sees Spencer and he remembers his silhouette from his nightmares and there’s no way he’s ever going to forget it ever again, but God does he ever want too. He blinks and rubs at his eyes, but now all he can hear is the crashing of the drum/heartbeat from the dreams, all he can think is how that was definitely a curse the person threw from that mob.

His _band._ Spencer, Brendon, solid footsteps.  
  
Wentz steps to get the door for them and Ryan sprints for the exit and disappears.


	2. Cigarettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter are extremely light. Profanity.

Ryan’s counting raindrops like they’re bullets.

It’s quiet on the alley corner; the drizzle of the water collecting in the gutter and melting it’s way down to the storm drain. He’s got his feet in the stream and his socks (green with clovers, for St. Patrick’s Day) are damp because of it. Somewhere behind him he can hear a bass line, something hard and crashing, but out here it’s muted and feels distant. It’s not windy but it’s misty, and the curls of it make the people walking by the entrance of the alley on the main street look like ghosts.

He’s turning a drumstick over in his hand, slowly, end over end, fingers brushing lightly over the wood while he examines it. SS is carved into one end, and the slimmer curved bit at the top has a slight crack in it that his thumb keeps returning to. He can see a liquor store’s neon sign advertising cheap beer, flashing pink at the other end of the alley, seeming subdued and inelegant somehow, and casting a muted glow like a halo in the drizzle.

Ryan has a meeting with his agent tomorrow morning. He has a book that he wrote that other people have been buying – actually, that a lot of other people have been buying. He’s barely wet and he feels like he’s drowning. He can’t even smell the beer and he feels like he’s drunk. The drumstick gave him a sliver and it would be the smart choice to throw it down the storm drain with the rain and forget about the entire thing.

He doesn't buy any beer. For all he knows he’s never drunk a day in his life; for all he knows he’s an alcoholic. He stands up, wipes back his hair and squints into the night, feels the bass like it’s his own heartbeat. Although he knows he's heard this song he can't for the life of him figure out where.

His socks are green with clovers, for St. Patrick’s Day. His phone has seven missed calls, from Patrick. Right now he feels like the world’s only as big as the alley and that flashing liquor store sign; feels like he’s the only person alive in the universe and everything outside the haze of light and lingering cigarette smoke are shadows and unreal.

Ryan stands up and walks off.  
Vanishes.  
He has Spencer Smith’s drumstick tucked behind his right ear like a pencil.

 Wandering along the adjourning street Ryan gets another call. Ryan hesitates for a second, his thumb nearly brushing the red button, and then makes a last minute choice to accept.

 “Thank fucking God,” Patrick says from the other end of the line. He sounds exhausted, relieved. “Look- don’t hang up. We’re sorry. Pete’s sorry. Can we talk? Can we meet somewhere?

 A taxi squeals up to Ryan and he waves it down, mumbling his address to the driver through the glass divider and balancing the phone on his shoulder while he does his seat belt up. “Pete tried to punch me.”

 “That was because-“ Ryan waits but Patrick just sighs. “Look, we need to explain things to you. I understand that you’re upset.”

 “I’m busy. I’ve got a business meeting.”

 “When?”

 “Tomorrow morning.”

 “Can we meet after?”

Ryan closes his eyes. He has no idea what he should or shouldn’t do, has no idea why he feels like he owes Patrick this. It’s been a couple months since Fall Out Boy jumped him, or whatever that had been, and he’s only thought of more questions. He quit his job managing the band blog, moved to Chicago, and for a while he’d been unemployed until The Dolor of Fletcher Aaron had been officially published, and then that whole _legitimate writer thing_ had kept him so busy that there’d been no time to think about bands or boys, or even Rich and Leia. Rich’s disappeared off the face of the planet, and Leia calls occasionally but she and Jade hit some anniversary? Ryan can’t remember, and now the two of them are in the Bahamas and won’t be back for some time. Rich was the one who'd told this to him, drunk off his face, and there'd been some issue communicating because Rich was wasted and Ryan was trying to get away from that as fast as possible.

He’s interrupted by a crackle from the phone and after a hastily muttered conference somebody new takes over the phone. Ryan thinks its Joe.

“What if we sent, like, a buffer?”

“A what?”

 “A representative? Look, you don’t trust us. Which is, I mean. Understandable. So we can send a dude that you can talk to, and then he’ll talk to us, and it’ll be all. Smooth sailing.”

Sounds stupid and unnecessarily complicated.

“Sure. Text me the time and place, but I’ve go to go now.”

 When Ryan gets home there’s two messages on his phone from Joe Trohman.  
_coffee shop on 23 rd at 1:30, youll know the guy  
__*when you see him, sorry_

 Magic twitches at his fingertips and Ryan presses his palm to the wall, feels it seep out through the conduit of his skin and drip down the plaster to the baseboards, then lower still through the floor until it's outside. Through the window Ryan sees a slight shimmer just above the grass, his magic evaporating, and he concentrates a little harder. He feels a pressure at his temples like the start of a headache and a jerk on his thumb like someone’s tugged it, and then there’s a crack of thunder and the rain stops.

He takes himself outside, legs weak and vision blurry. He lies on the ground on the street like he’s lost his mind, and he laughs and laughs and people walk by him like he’s not there at all, like he’s a specter. A spectator. An impartial judge of the human condition. It’s still misty so when Ryan pulls himself back up to his feet he can only see a few metres in front of him and pushing a hand out makes it look like his wrists are fading out into nothing.

He gets another text from Spencer Smith. ‘ _I might crash ur coffee date, that ok?_ ’

Ryan deletes it without answering and feels more powerful for doing that then he feels powerful because he held back the rain. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but nothing does when it’s foggy. It’s not coherent but he hasn’t been for months. He’s exhausted and there’s lights coiling themselves up and down his arms like somebody’s using a projector on the aurora borealis. 

Pretending like he doesn't care about Spencer is considerably more difficult then it has a right to be. They've been texting comfortably back and forth ever since the Fall Out Boy concert and there was a day where Spencer called and Ryan forgot to pretend he was asleep, so they had a conversation over the phone while Ryan got dressed for the day and Spencer did whatever it was that Spencer Smith's do when they're not being frustrating enigmas. It was strangely calming, almost soothing. Spencer has a rolling cadence to his voice and Ryan kept finishing his sentences. In the moment it was wonderful but after they hung up it left Ryan feeling strangely disquieted. He kept thinking about Spencer, crying and warm and eyes and hips, and kept thinking _mine_ , and then not admitting that was what he'd been doing.

That night he dreams, the same old but different. A remastered version. Ryan's standing on a stage for a music festival with the audience screaming furiously at them. Ryan's able to make out details he wasn't able to before; he can make out Brendon singing somewhere on his left.

  
"-Are not who you think, so we'll pick ba-"

Time freezes entirely and Ryan, fuzzily, because this is also one of those dreams where something is going horribly wrong and all you can do is stand there and scream, sees a dark shadow cutting it's way through the crowd. Time then snaps forwards extremely fast to make up for it's buffering, and then there's a blurry unfocused man with a brightly coloured shirt and blindingly white teeth hurling a bottle up at the stage.

"-And I believe-"

The bottle hits Brendon and he falls to the stage while the dark shadow races to devour him, and the music stops and Brendon's on the ground and Ryan still hasn't even turned to properly see him, still can't see Brendon at all, because he's enveloped in black and Ryan can't move and he's trying to find the bottler but all he can do is stand there and try to finish the song.

At the coffee shop on the 23rd, 1:30, Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship is drinking an espresso with Spencer Smith from Panic! At the Disco, and Ryan Ross from Every Bookstore In America sits down beside them. 

“Heya, Rossy,” smiles Saporta. Ryan decides it’s a smile, but the lazy curl to his mouth and the half lidded eyes are throwing him off a little bit.

He nods and sips at his own cappuccino so he won’t be expected to talk. Seeing Spencer again doesn’t feel as strange as Ryan thought it would. Spencer’s got eye bags and bounces his leg and he’s got a shirt on that Ryan is absolutely sure used to be his own.

Spencer asks, “Are you doing okay?”

Saporta slurps his drink and then stretches dramatically. “Okay, sweetheart. Tell me what you want to know. I'm gonna level with you."

“Fine,” Ryan answers both of them, “Why can’t I remember anything? 

Spencer looks twitchy, but Saporta only shrugs. “Magic, little Ryan. Some hoodoo shit." 

As if Ryan didn’t know that already. “I mean specifically. Who’s magic? Why? I know somebody cursed me.”

“Ah, well. There's the tricky part right there."

Spencer makes an odd twitchy movement, as if he wanted to move or to say something but then aborted halfway through. It's so strange not to know him. Briefly Ryan wonders if his condition can be reversed, and if so would he get his memories back, or just stop losing them? Lately he has been losing them. There's been days that happen out of order, weeks he remembers only half of, finds himself in rooms he doesn't remember walking into. It's a problem that is more concerning then Ryan lets himself believe, because he just doesn't have the capacity to deal with it right now.

"You said you were here to level with me." 

"That I did," Saporta admits, "Ok, so the thick of it. What do you remember about your band? You tell me what you remember happening and I'll fill it in with the shit we've already got and between the three of us we can probably get a pretty good picture. It'll be like a think tank! The most depressing one ever!"

Ryan says, "Wentz said something about me blogging about going to the show. How did he know that?"

Spencer runs a finger over the lip of his cup. "This has happened before. You've- your memory. Before. And some things are different, but you always get a job running the FOB official blog, so we just watched it, and. You know." 

The seat below Ryan is hard plastic and uncomfortable. His drink is burning the back of the throat, his head is reeling and he’s going to be sick. "Before? How many times?!"

Saporta twitches the corner of his mouth either amusedly or nervously, but Ryan has no idea which. "Twice." 

The table spins. Spencer tenses. Ryan tastes bile in his mouth, hears ringing in his hears, stands up and vomits into the trashcan. A waitress standing near shrieks but Ryan can't hear very well through the ringing, can't bring himself to care. 

"Drama queen." teases Gabe. Ryan just threw up in front of him, they're on a first name basis now.

"Whatever, fuck." Ryan spits. "Twice. Ok. Why though?"

Gabe rolls his cup from hand to hand. "You know how curses work, you're a magician. They're supposed deal with one time bullshit, like you fucked my boyfriend so I'm going to curse you so you're ugly or whatever. They're real petty things unless the caster is super high level. That's when it gets real. Recurring curses are cast one time but then they just chill out until something triggers them again. Like, you fucked my boyfriend for the second time so now I'll just straight up turn you into a warthog." 

Ryan frowns. "You don't think." 

Spencer shrugs. "What else?"

"I don't-"

"-Yeah."

Ryan gets to his feet and drags his hand across his mouth to get rid of the acidic aftertaste of the vomit. He feels more settled now, although his thoughts are still turbulent. A curse. Someone in that crowd from his dream - memory - cursed him. But that can't possibly be right, because the figure on the stage that got hit wasn't him, it was the singer.

His _band._ Spencer, Brendon, solid footsteps.

Gabe leans back in the chair and kicks his feet up onto the table, ignoring the glare from the barista and the eye roll from Spencer. "So you were zapped. And you're still being zapped. Because you're the most difficult person I've ever met in my entire life, you haven't told us in what time frame you were cursed, if you even know that shit, and we don't know who cursed you and it's all a mess, pretty much." 

Beside him Spencer squints dubiously. Ryan knows this means, "that is not the complete truth and I don't know why you aren't telling it but I'm willing to go along with this anyway," in Spencer Face. While it's cool, sort of, that Ryan can still read his best friend like that, he's still incredibly frustrated that these people show up in his life and tell him they'll explain, but all they can do is confirm things he knew already and then decide last minute that "level with you," actually means, "do the bare minimum and waste your time."

"Okay," Ryan says, "That's it, then. We're done."

He means the conversation but it sounds like he's referring to something much bigger. He hails a taxi separate from Gabe and Spencer and counts the mailboxes he passes. There's one on every five street corners. Around them are people gathered, shoving letters in through the slats, little children looking delighted to see the envelope vanishing into the body. Elderly people struggling with lifting up the latch. Ryan thinks briefly about deleting his email account and then remembers he did already, a couple weeks ago, because he had so much unread mail that there couldn't possibly be anything important. His agent had been pissed about that but he gave her his number so now she texts every couple days. The mailboxes have graffiti down the sides of them. The people don't, but some of them have tattoos.

Ryan's at a book signing.

He was in the bathtub and now he's dressed and sitting on the end of an isle of chairs. Chapters, or maybe Barnes and Noble; he's looking at an impromptu stage with a podium and a microphone set up. While the space is small due to it just not being meant for an event like this - somebody's moved one of the bookshelves horizontally so there's a semicircle for Ryan and the audience - people are jammed into every available space. There's middle aged women sitting on the fold out chairs with their children leaning against their legs or scattered by their feet, men leaning on the bookshelves and holding personal copies for signing, teenagers (the audience is mostly composed of people Ryan's age, young adults, 20ish) with their hands stuffed in hoodie pockets. A lady is talking into the microphone with a serene smile on her face, barely contained excitement in the twitch of her hands.

When Ryan half turns in his seat he can see, better now, the faces of the audience. They're all anticipatory on one level or another; some of the more enthusiastic are actually leaning forwards in their seats, like it'll allow them to hear Ryan clearer, more introspectively. Behind them Ryan can see his book. There's a table of them especially put out for the signing, but also clearly visible on the bestseller shelf.

He's holding a copy in his hand and Ryan takes a moment to examine it. The dust sleeve is a soft green with a drawn illustration of a mirror on the front, below the title in a spidery font, 'The dolor of Fletcher Aaron,' and on the back, for the summary, is written, "They are separate people, but only in theory," below which are several glowing reviews from critics. Ryan Ross is neatly printed in the bottom corner. He has a biography on the inside back that reminds worryingly of his father's obituary, and it comes with a picture of Ryan laughing into the camera, hair soft looking and eyes wide with delight in a way that Ryan can never remember feeling before. The price tag demands 20 dollars. Ryan is terrified of his book, of the very idea of it.

The lady at the microphone is just finishing rattling off a list of awards that Fletcher Aaron has won. She clears her throat and wraps up her speech. "Anyway, that's all from me. You all know just how good this book is, that's why you're here! So. Here today, reading for us an excerpt of his debut novel, I'm proud to introduce: Ryan Ross!"

Ryan stands up and makes his way to the podium because it doesn't matter that he doesn't remember how he got here. He's done this before, both the reading and the forgetting. The audience is clapping and grinning and Ryan smiles awkwardly back at them.

"Thanks for having me!" he starts. There's a post it note stuck in his copy and he flips open to the marked page, about a third of the way in. It's a fairly substantial novel, although in editing a huge chunk of it had been chopped out. He sits down in the chair positioned by the podium and twists the microphone so it'll pick him up easier, and takes a steadying breath.

"Chapter twenty-two, Jamal.

"When the airplane lands Fletcher's brother turns and asks, 'What were we fighting about, even?' It's typical of him to have forgotten, and even more so to wait until the plane's taxiing down the landing ship to bring it up. Fletcher sighs. 

'It matters to me.' 

'What was it though?'

Fletcher rolls his eyes because he can't actually remember either and he doesn't want to let his brother know. This situation is bad enough already without the two of them finding more things in common. Being the same so exactly used to be something that they were proud of. They would make lists. They would decide this was their favourite movie and this was their favourite colour. Pink, because then neither of them got to wear it. It's still Fletcher's favourite and it's probably still his brother's favourite too."

Ryan gets into a rhythm and loses himself to the story, and when he finishes the chapter he's almost disappointed. He closes the book softly and steps back up to the podium, delighted by the rapture on his audience's faces, the longing for more. The woman who introduced him is beaming and scuttles up to the microphone next to him.

"Fantastic!" she gushes, "Anyone have any questions for Mr. Ross?" About fifteen hands rocket up instantly, and she points to one of the teenagers. "You, in the, uh, gruesome shirt."

The kid's wearing an MCR band tee. Ryan smirks.

"Yeah! So, why was chapter twenty-two called Jamal? And, like, each chapter is a different person, but it's not a person in the story? What does that mean? And this probably not a cool thing to say, but, uh, Panic! is one of my favourite bands and, fuck, your lyrics mean a lot to me, so, thanks."

Ryan presses his hand on the wood of the podium and answers feeling better because of that, more controlled. "Well, the struggle that Fletcher has is that he's not sure if he really is 'Fletcher,' and he's struggling with what being Fletcher requires or means, verses being Aaron. Identity, names, what they signify and what we attach to them. In the end of the book- Wait, spoilers?"

The audience laughs. Grinning, the kid who asked the question says, "I have actually read your book." 

Ryan rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Right, right. Of course. So he ends up conceding the name Fletcher to his brother in the end. The idea of that is that he eventually realizes he doesn't want to be Fletcher because he's always going to doubt if he 'deserves,' or if he actually _is_ Fletcher, and doesn't want to deal with what being Fletcher means, whereas his brother - who he'd been originally trying to 'make,' be Aaron - really isn't worried about that? So, I made the chapter titles names because there's each name with each possibility, each personality, like they're opportunities. And thanks, about Panic."

There are a few questions after that, and then the host taps her watch and smiles at Ryan, exaggeratedly mouthing "last one!" and pointing to a man in the front row. The man has his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankle, wearing blue flip-flops that don't match his shirt but come tantalizingly close to it. He's got a scruffy beard and looks unbelievably kind. Familiar.

Ryan says, "Thanks for coming everybody. I really appreciate all the support for me and for my story." He holds tight to his book and makes a break for the science fiction section, but Kind Looking Deja Vu Man moves to intercept. Ryan swears under his breath and dodges around a group of middle aged women discussing how this book represents the crisis of identity every parent goes through when naming their kid, or whatever, and ducks through a cluster of college kids half heartedly trying to convince each other that they're only here because they don't have anywhere better to be. Ryan glances over his shoulder and lets out a relieved sigh when he sees he's lost Flip Flop. He fishes his phone out of his pocket to let his agent know that the signing went well and to check the date, see how much time he's lost. Two days, which isn't the worst.

When he drops the phone back into his pocket and scans for the door, he sees Flip Flop standing directly in front of him, smiling gently. His arms are freckled and there's crinkles around his eyes that make him look younger then he probably is, somehow, and he looks genuinely pleased to see Ryan, which is an improvement from the last time he encountered somebody that knew and then forgot.

"Hey," greets Flip Flop, anticlimactically. "If I told you my name was Jon Walker would that mean anything to you?" 

"Yeah. I read your Wikipedia page. You're the bassist right?" Ryan thinks, solid footsteps. Memory or perhaps imagination provides an image of Jon sprawled out on a lawn chair with Ryan's sunglasses tucked into his shirt, strumming a bass guitar and singing along to The Beatles playing over an outdoor music system.

Jon looks surprised and happy about this. "Yes! I liked your reading. When the book came out Spencer dragged us to the store and bought seven copies for everybody in his contacts list. I don't think he realized or even cared that Pete and the entire label were already on it. It's better hearing the words coming from your voice though."

Ryan smiles hesitantly. Something about Jon makes him want to smile. "Thanks."

Holding his arm out exaggeratedly, like Ryan's a maiden in some Victorian romance novel who Jon's attempting to woo, Jon juts his chin in the direction of the door and asks, "Want to get out of here and talk? Or do you have a scary novelist meeting booked." 

Placing his arm in Jon's and in his flattest monotone, Ryan replies, "Sweep me off my feet, Walker." 

Jon laughs delightedly. He bundles Ryan down the street and tells him about his cat, Dylan, and when Ryan confesses he's more up to the pet care level of fish, takes him to the Shedd Aquarium. While Ryan's pretty sure Jon has some ulterior motive he's happy to just go along with this for now. He hasn't has a day to just hang out with somebody (a friend, Ryan decides) since Rich and Leia vanished. Jon's charming and laid back and has a sly sense of humour that sneaks up on you and that's incredibly compatible with Ryan's brand of dry wit. They wander around the Abbott Oceanarium for a while before backtracking back to the Stingray Touch exhibit, and then Jon gets excited about the penguins so they go see them. At one point Jon takes out his phone and starts using it to take pictures that Ryan demands to see and then is amazed at the quality of. He suspects Jon was the one who took the photo that ended up on his book with the biography. For lunch they get overpriced burgers at concession and Ryan sneaks Jon's fries until Jon catches him, and then he just eats them openly and makes faces so Jon will laugh again.

Jon's laugh is like how cotton candy tastes, like the potential of brand new soap feels. His hands are rough from callouses but smell like he puts hand cream on them, and everything about him is so unhurried and deliberate that just being around him is therapeutic. Ryan can't exactly remember Jon playing, but he remembers feeling the bass resonate in his stomach. Ryan wonders how much the person who cursed him hated him, what Ryan could've possibly done that was so awful that forgetting a person like Jon Walker was warranted.

When it's time to go home Jon sleeps on Ryan's couch and in the morning he's still there, making coffee and talking to somebody on the phone.

"No, I crashed at Ry's," he yawns, "Not kidnapped." He turns to see Ryan hovering in the doorway, feeling sleepy and domestic and like Jon belongs here, in Ryan's kitchen, like something terribly wrong has been corrected. Jon's still on the line but winks at Ryan when he sees him watching. "The signing was fantastic. I knew it would be though. No surprise there."

Ryan feels himself blushing and steps back into his bedroom to get dressed. Although he sleeps in the bathtub now (he'd ended up in his bed last night because he didn't know what Jon would think about anything other then such) his closet still holds his clothing. The more he looks at his shirts, the more he wonders if they're all actually his. Jon had made a joke yesterday about Ryan having fantastic taste in sweaters that made him think it was Jon's. There's also a pair of shoes Ryan found, white and expensive looking loafers, that aren't his. Having Jon around feels so right and so good that it's likely he was close before Ryan lost his memory, and Spencer fits so smoothly into his thoughts and spaces between words that they must've known each other for a very long time. Brendon's the only one that Ryan's still worried about liking, about getting to know.

In the kitchen Jon's saying, "Sure, will do. Want to talk to him?" Only a few seconds later he pokes a head into Ryan's room. "It's Spence." He says Spence smoothly and fondly. Spence sounds like the kind of nickname you have to earn.

It's awkward to take the phone because Ryan's still halfway in the sweater from yesterday, but he balances it on his shoulder and makes it work. The sweater is bright purple and a little tight, which doesn't fit with what he knows about Spencer and suspects about Jon, so Brendon must be the original owner. He tugs it down and it doesn't quite come down to the top of his jeans. It smells like banana smoothie and is soft from use.

"Hi. Jon Walker came to my signing and took me to an aquarium."

Spencer sounds interested by this. "Typical Jon Walker."

"I think so. I don't quite know yet." Ryan waits until Jon's back in the kitchen and then adds, "Is Jon Walker your boyfriend?"

"Fuck! Ryan!"

"It's okay if he is. But I feel like he might've been mine? Or like you might've been mine?" Ryan hesitates and when Spencer doesn't add anything, continues, "I'm wearing Brendon's hoodie. And I've got a pair of your shoes in my closet."

"Are they white?"

"Yeah."

"Mine then."

"What else is yours?"

Spencer says, "Shit." He says, "You, at one point. Did you ever listen to our music?"

Ryan is fully in the sweater and properly holding the phone. He wiggles his feet into Spencer's shoes that are too large for him, and listens to the movement of Jon in his kitchen. He did listen to the music, and the first album broke his heart. The second one broke it again, but differently. Fever was somebody furious and confused and possibly dying. Pretty was somebody naive and lost and in love, and too tired to understand those things. It was clear Ryan wrote both albums, and it was clear he didn't do it alone.

"Of course."

"That's mine too. And all of that, me, Jon, Brendon. Yours too. Theirs. Ours. We share each other. It wasn't as complicated as I'm making it sound."

"You're not making it sound complicated," Ryan tells him, "You're making it sound wonderful." Surprise. 

"You- really?"

"Yeah. So who did I cheat on first?" 

In the kitchen, Jon goes suddenly silent. Ryan knew he was listening in though, so it's okay. It couldn't have been Jon first because Jon is cotton candy and soap, so it was either Spencer (who is hips and warm) or Brendon, who is lavender and noise and conspicuously absent.

"All of us, really." sighs Spencer, "But you. It. There's a lot of."

"No, yeah." Ryan nods. "I know. I'll talk to you later." He hangs up and goes back out to the kitchen, where Jon's holding two coffee cups and sitting at the table, trying to look like he wasn't eavesdropping. It isn't working because Jon's got the worst poker face Ryan has ever seen in his life. 

Their feet press against each other under the table and Ryan mentally fills in the blanks, scribbling Spencer into the chair across from him and a grey blob for Brendon leaning against the counter by the coffee maker. He imagines they'd be arguing with each other and stealing off each other's plates and kisses off each other's mouths. Then he turns to Jon, solemn. They look at each other and Ryan knows Jon isn't mad, that they'd had time to deal with this or talk about it and that it's not going to be a big deal. He's forgiven for this transgression he can't remember. Jon has a small ink stain on his t-shirt and his mug reads NUMBER ONE GRANDMA. Jon's watching him back and there's this expression on his face, a looseness in his mouth, like he's not quite smiling but he could at any moment because he's pretending at serious for Ryan's benefit. 

Ryan thinks, I love you.  
Then he says it. 

"Love you too, Ry."

It's nice to hear and he gets it back with no hesitation, zero pause. There's a feeling, again, of that same deja vu, and Ryan can't help but wonder how many times they've had this exact same conversation. How many times have they gone to the aquarium? It's not that, 'I love you,' sounds empty, but it sounds like it was supposed to be something bigger then it turned out to be. Ryan can't help but feel cheated.

He cheated.  
He can't remember Brendon's face.

What if they cursed him, because he fucked up this big important romantic thing? What if they feel bad about it and that's the only reason why they're having him around now? He's loophole himself into this, this band, this experience, this circular life.

He thinks about saying as such to Jon but they're still looking at each other, and Ryan feels like maybe Jon knows all this already, like maybe Ryan's already said it. He makes up some excuse about a publishing meeting and leaves the apartment. Maybe he actually has a publishing meeting. Maybe his agent emailed him about it. Does he have an agent? Does he have an email?

Mailboxes.  
Tattoos.  
He's in an alleyway.

Softness and muted bass lines, quietness on the corner and a spray of water in the gutter melting it's way down to the storm drain, running over his feet. He's wearing green clover socks for St. Patrick's Day. Misty, not quite windy, ghost people on the main street. He's holding Spencer's drumstick and looking at the liquor store neon sign. Subdued, inelegant. Brendon Urie is sitting next to him, eating an apple and cackling like Ryan's just told him something hysterical. They're in a pocket of existence. Specters. Spectators. Impartial judges of the human condition.

"Has this happened before?" Ryan asks.

"Oh my God, Ryan," Brendon grins toothily and wide, "You wouldn't believe the shit that's happened before."

The bass organizes itself into, 'Of all the gin joints in all the world.' Ryan's pretty sure that he didn't figure that out the first time. Brendon's also wearing St. Patrick's Day socks, except his have leprechauns. Ryan can't see the socks through Brendon's shoes (the white loafers, Spencer's shoes) but he knows that's what they look like. There's a feeling in Ryan's head that he can best describe as a blood rush, as if he's stood up too quickly, but it's more like Brendon's siphoning energy off of him. Feeding.

"This isn't actually happening," decides Ryan, "One of us is asleep."

"I'm not dreaming."

"I'm dreaming then." 

"You're always dreaming."

"What?"

"I'm always singing."

"You're not singing now."

Brendon turns his head at that and Ryan sees him head on for the first time. He looks sick. There's bruise coloured swipes under his eyes like upside down eye shadow, or the realities of sleep deprivation. He's skinny, the purple hoodie hanging off his frame in a way it never did for Ryan, and his hair looks unhealthy and greasy. In the half-light Brendon looks gaunt. Ryan lost his memory twice before this, so Brendon's possibly held this conversation or a variation of it twice before. Ryan wants to make him feel better but he hasn't ever been good at that so instead he gives Brendon the drumstick.

"I'm not," agrees Brendon.

He stands up and swings his right arm, the one holding Spencer's stick, then unexpectedly hurls it into the street just as a taxi roars by and runs it over. There's a disproportionately loud crack. It sounds like a thunderclap. It sounds like the entire world is ending. Ryan leaps to his feet and bends to grab one of the broken halves - the half with SS - and trips into a summersault, and when he comes back up he's sitting in his bathtub drenched in sweat.

Struggling to his feet and hurling off the comforter Ryan flicks on the bathroom light and splashes cold water on his face from the sink. Dreaming, awake, Jon and Spencer, Brendon. He feels sick to his stomach but doesn't throw up. He's got the apartment to himself, probably, although it's likely that Ryan's lost another couple days and Jon by extension. He brings his trembling fingers up to their reflection in the mirror and sends a pulse of magic through it. His reflection shakes itself and blinks, pushes fringe out of his face and purses his lips back at Ryan. 

"Can you find Jon for me?" Ryan asks it. 

His reflection salutes smarmily before wandering out of the mirror frame and Ryan leaves the bathroom while he waits, making himself a cup of coffee in Jon's grandma mug, or potentially in his own grandma mug that Jon borrowed. Ryan puts out one of his notebooks that he'd woken up with and opens it to a fresh new page that he then stares at while the coffee percolates. Lucid dreams. At least he knows what Brendon looks like now. He should ask Jon or Spencer about Brendon, they probably know, and now that he's thinking of it Ryan's disgusted with himself for not doing it earlier. Although Ryan's the one who keeps triggering this recurring curse (doing _what?_ he thinks, not for the first time) there was a magical displacement around Brendon. That sucking feeling, like Brendon was a black hole. It's impossible to forget the skeletal look he'd had, that unnatural paleness. 

Pouring the coffee Ryan manages to not spill anything. He sips at it while he checks the calendar to find out he lost three days and the spare room to see he gained a Jon Walker, complete with suitcase full of possessions and Dylan curled up on the pillow where Jon's head would be, if he was there. Dylan makes a plaintive mewling sound and Ryan sits down and pets him, careful of the coffee. After initial purring approval, Dylan gets restless and jumps to his feet, kneads Ryan's thigh, and then darts out to the main room. Following him, Ryan settles back at his table and turns his phone on.

_Bzzz! Bzzz!_

New messages come in, one from Jon, letting him know that a friend was back in town and he was going to go see him, a couple from 'Patrick,' that were probably actually from Pete using Patrick's phone in an attempt at subterfuge so Ryan will actually answer him, and one from Rich. Ryan's surprised to see that one and opens it.

_back in chicago! plans 4tmmrow?_ He's about to answer him when there's a sensation in his hand like someone's tugging his pinkie finger that means his reflection's back. Ryan looks up to see a view in the reflection of his refrigerator.

There's Jon, sitting in a booth next to Brendon - who's looking still bad, but better then he was in Ryan's dream - and Rich next to them. As Ryan watches, Rich's features fade out because the magic glamor covering them doesn't hold up under Ryan's advanced seeing-eye reflection magic.

His jaw sharpens; hair darkens, mouth teases different, until it's Gabe Saporta in the booth, reeking of dark magic, drinking from a bottle exactly like the cursed one he'd thrown at Brendon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by: screaming incoherently at long hours of the morning :D  
> Thank you for all your wonderful comments, whenever I was slow on motivation I would read them back and get REINVIGORATED or something close to it. The next chapter will be the last.


	3. And Shortness Of Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings this chapter are for profanity, brief sexual themes, and general mental health Fuckery.

Brendon will die.

It's only Ryan's memories buying him time, Ryan's life he's stealing. The two of them are building a quilt. Brendon's sewing together a blanket with the patchwork that's Ryan.

Leeches.

They're both leeches - Brendon for the manner of his saving, Ryan for the nature of his very being. At his core he's a black hole, he needs Brendon more then Brendon needs him. And he doesn't know Brendon. And he doesn't know himself. And he knows Jon likes penguins and Spencer Smith, and that the four of them are tied together: the extent to which Brendon started to die, and so did the other three. Ryan most literally. He saw Brendon, saw the bottle, felt the cold exhale of death on his neck, and acted. 

In the refrigerator reflection Brendon looks drunk. He's leaning right into Jon's space and yelling into his ear. There's no sound but Ryan sees flashing club lights and can tell that it's a crowded place full of reckless people and opportunity-- a sign in the back above the bar, in neon of course, advertises "Studio Paris." Gabe's got an arm slung around Brendon's neck. His free hand is holding his bottle between his thumb and middle fingers, and his phone, which is still open to the messaging thread he told Ryan he was back in town from. He's smiling at whatever the conversation is, but he looks distracted somehow. While Ryan tries to scramble for thought - for anything - Gabe squints right up at the reflection. His nose crumples up in concentration, then his smile gets _wicked_ and he waves his bottle, and the image dissolves until Ryan's just looking back at his own horrified face in his refrigerator.

Ryan flies down the stairs like they're not even there, and now he's sprinting down the street, dialling Pete with his knitting-needle fingers and not stopping to put on his shoes. Despite every attempt otherwise memories are slamming into Ryan's head, enthusiastic and messy, crashing around in his brain and knocking into each other painfully, and it's making Ryan feel _hysterical_. For the first time he doesn't _want_ to remember because Brendon is dying, dying, he's dying. Ryan's sprinting down the street, dialling Pete with his knitting-needle fingers.

Thinking stop, stop, please, please fucking stop.

It happened like this. 

Gabe cursed Brendon.

Brendon died, or is dying, or will die.

Ryan cast a protection spell.

Complete amnesia, for new life.

The spell went sideways.

Brendon gets sicker and needs more of Ryans memory to sustain him.

Brendon takes Ryan's memory and gets better.

Ryan remembers and Brendon gets worse.

Ryan remembers this now. Or he assumes it must've happened. Or maybe Jon told him before Ryan forgot again. Number One Gramma. Everything's a metaphor, everything's made out of mist. What's Ryans? What does he own? Does he possess himself? Perhaps he used to, but not anymore. The world is rain and he is afraid. He's given himself to these three people that he used to love and can't remember and wants to know. That must've been why Pete tried to knock him out, to perform more magic without Ryans knowledge, to try and fix this whole mess. It wouldn't have mattered. They tried twice before and fucked that up too.

Forgive and forget. Does the order matter?

Pete picks up on the third ring. "Ry? What- I'm so glad you called, shit; it's all been so fucked up lately- Look. I need to explain, I need to."

One of Ryan's feet hit a puddle and his sock gets cold and wet, and Ryan swears viciously into the phone as he stumbles to the curb and starts to wave down a taxi. "I remember, it's okay, but you've got to get to Brendon! Gabe's with him, he's in trouble!" 

"Gabe's a good guy, he'll be okay, whatever's wrong."

"He really is a devil, you know, and not a man."

"Sure, whatever. You're wrong but- You remember?" Pete sounds nervous, but somehow resigned. "You're remembering? How much?"

A taxi miraculously appears and Ryan clamours into the back seat and tells the driver to step on it, fucking drive, Studio Paris, before he realizes what Pete's implying and his heart drops out through the bottom of his ribcage.

"Pete, you can't wipe me. You _can't_ , I know what's happening, and I need to fix it, making me forget is only a temporary solution. And Brendon can't live like this, I can't live like this. It's killing me."

Pete says, "It's keeping Brendon alive."

Ryan repeats, "It's _killing me_ ," and there's an awful, awful silence. "Get to Gabe and talk to him," he eventually spits, "He's at the nightclub on Hubbard and I'll met you there. I need your help to make this right, but if Patrick of any of you make one wrong move, I'll peel your fingernails off individually and use them to tear out your oesophagus." He hangs up. The taxi driver is staring at him in the rear view mirror, jaw agape, barely watching the traffic ahead of him. 

"Bad breakup?" 

"Sort of," says Ryan, "I think he's technically my boss, or something. That's going to be a problem later." 

"Oh," nods the driver, wisely, "I once stole the car of my boss' girlfriend, and that wasn't a good move, promotionally speaking, ya'know."

"Sure." Ryan agrees, "Can you drive any faster?" 

The driver pulls up to the curb and Ryan scrambles out. His feet hit the gutter and his feet get drenched for the second time, but it hardly registers because he's running past the outdoor patio area, past the bouncer and under the arms of people milling around outside, and bursting into the crowded club of Studio Paris.

Inside is a multi-tiered, rocking side to side with the grind of people, and it's loud _loud_ from the whole spectacle generated by the sultry looking singer twining a microphone cord around her half naked body and holding the screaming rapture from the hormonal crush of her audience. In the lowered area there are configurations of couches, one that takes up the main area of the dance floor, a big U shape with littler rectangles or seating arranged inside it. Back at main level, along the walls, are snug little booths- like the one that Gabe, Jon, and Brendon were in. Higher up at the far back is a raised stage where the singer gyrates, with speakers lining the base, a turntable setup off to one side, and TV's hanging like pictures on the wall, flashing neon in time with the ovular hanging lights. Ryan blinks, confused, and the 'couches,' resolve themselves into Japanese-style tables, bench on one side and bar on the other. Perpendicular from the TV's is a wall made of mostly street-facing window, and in the corner booth partly lit by streetlight and partly lit by electrified club lights, are the people that Ryan's looking for.

He shoves around the back wall, feet squishing slightly on the floor. The music feels like it's peeling off the skin from the back of his neck, and settling low in his stomach is the stench of alcohol. Ryan never figured out why he hated that smell so much, or why it made him feel so on edge. He didn't try that hard. 

"Hey!" Jon grins at Ryan as he walks up. He's holding a beer and looks pretty tipsy, but pleasant. Someone at the table ordered something from the bar, and with it came a little tray of condiments like you might find in a breakfast restaurant instead of an exclusive club. "Ryan Rossy! This is Gabe; he's from Cobra Starship? He's a bad guy." His face contorts and then soothes again. " _Band_ guy!"

"From the mouth of babes." Ryan answers, as politely as he can manage, which given the circumstances is a kind of distrustful-terseness. "Gabe, can we talk?" 

Gabe shakes his hand off of Brendon's shoulder, where it's been resting. He's gangly, all legs and hands. "Sure," he says, and he winks at Ryan, drawing out the movement, cheapening it. "Let's dance."

Through the interaction Brendon stares straight down at the table like he's not seeing anything. Ryan follows his eye line; Brendon's staring at the condiment tray like he's a Trojan soldier with X-Ray vision. 

Gabe winds his way through the people effortlessly, while Ryan struggles through in his wake. After losing Ryan in the crowd twice Gabe seems to lose patience and grabs Ryan by the bicep and hauls him in front of himself, walking and swinging his elbows liberally until they're in the washrooms and the music is reduced to a persistent off-rhythm afterthought. Gabe raps on the stall doors to make sure they're alone, and then sweeps an arm grandly in Ryan's direction.

Before losing his nerve, Ryan spits out, "You've got to lift the curse on Brendon."

Tilting his head like a predatory cat, Gabe crosses his arms over his painfully yellow CLANDESTINE INDUSTRIES t-shirt. 

"Ok, right to the point. Just like before, little man." He swaggers up to the bathroom sinks and leans against the one nearest to the hairdryer. Ryan's eyes follow his angles, his too-smart eyes, and his ass in the mirror.

"Can you do it?" 

Gabe purses his lips, but that's fine. Ryan can wait. Gabe seems to know this. It's gratifying to be taken seriously for once. "Yes I could." Gabe says finally. "If it's a question of raw talent, like, straight up magical ability? I could unhex your pretty boy singer. But no, also, I can't."

"What's it a question of, if you can't?" 

"Ha! It's a question of motivation. It's a question of why. It's a question of effort."

"Oh." Ryan nods. "Like. Why would you want to do it, why would I not be able to stop it, why would Brendon blame himself?" 

"All of those are good." Gabe agrees, pleasantly. He's being much more cooperative and amiable then Ryan had braced himself for, and there's something intensely off-putting about it, but something that's also equally difficult to pin down the source of. Ryan reaches out a hand, stops himself, but Gabe twitches his arm out and takes Ryan's hand in his own. There are callouses on his fingers. There is intention in Gabe's careful stroke down Ryan's wrist.

"If you jack me on this," Ryan says, "I will rip out your Achilles Tendons and play them on a harp."

Gabe doesn't let go and he doesn't stop smiling. "Babe," he pontificates, "I'm certain that I've never been anything but honest with you."

Ryan takes his hands back and tucks them safely into his side, crossing his arms. "Well that's a blatant lie. I didn't even know your damn name; you mislead me about your intention, your identity, and your purpose. I was looking for the person who cursed Brendon and you didn't help me at all. You were around earlier, right? On the day that I found George's obituary the paper read that Cobra Starship was at some festival or another in the vicinity. You're the person responsible for this whole calamitous situation I'm stuck in."

"But you _weren't_ looking for Brendon, or your band, or me. And you didn't ask me to help. And I cursed him, yeah dude, but you stuck your soul in him where it wasn't supposed to be." Gabe shrugged expressively with his whole body. "I don't expect you to understand this, but I was doing you a massive favour. If you'd just calmed down and let him die, then shit would've been rocking." 

"So you were? Trying to kill him?"

Gabe's face twists angrily. His jaw clenches up into his cheek and the whole left side of his face contorts, like his skin doesn't have any elasticity in it at all. Ryan is suddenly glad that he pulled his hands away. 

"I had a memory," Ryan continues, quickly, "Like a dream. We were co-dependent, the four of us, Panic? And in the memory we were on our tour bus, on a couch. Spencer was watching a movie and I was sitting on his legs with Brendon stretched out on top of me, Jon balanced on the back of the couch holding the back of Spencer's neck. I knew where all of them were, and where they were going to be. Like, I saw Brendon fidget and knew he was getting hungry but I knew that Jon saw it, also, and that Spencer had been shopping already and he would've gotten gummy bears and hid them under the couch so I just reached down and, yeah, they were right where I thought they would be. But they weren't bears, they were sharks, and Spencer saw something on my face, maybe, because he laughed and said, 'They were out!' Like he knew what I was thinking, exactly what I was thinking. So I gave Brendon the bag, and."

Gabe is watching him, still coiled tight, but curious.

"And so I gave Brendon the bag. But there were other times too, when were alone, where one person would be doing something and it was like _their_ space was _our_ space. I remember sleeping next to Jon, with, I don't know, the sound of breathing around us and just, hearing it, having the three of them. Near all the time." 

Ryan realizes his legs are shaking and he sits down suddenly, head knocking against the base of the sink. He hugs himself tightly. He's freezing, suddenly.

"When we were recording our songs sometimes it was great, because we would all know what each other wanted, we'd always be moving in sync around each other, like planets, maybe, around the sun, but it could be so awful, because you just want- some space- I felt, maybe, like they were under my skin, like they were stuck to me, like they loved me- but, not like you're _supposed_ to love someone. I couldn't. Stand it? One of the memories I have currently was the night we got signed. Pete Wentz took us to a taco place. That night the four of us all just piled on top of each other on Jon's bed, we were all running hot and messy, so we. I kissed Spencer first but then. We. All together, I guess, like we'd always done it, even though we hadn't, and in the morning-" 

He stops talking. Gabe slides down beside him and sits on the tile, so close Ryan could lean his head to the side and be resting on Gabe's shoulder.

"Were you Fletcher?" Gabe asks, softly. "Or Aaron?" 

"I was both of them," says Ryan. Then, "Why did you curse Brendon?"

"Because I was trying to kill him." 

"And it was me that messed up the spell to bring him back, right?"

"You tried to give up your memory in exchange for his life, but Brendon's dumb brain tried to resist the spell. Hero types, ' _I'm not worth it_ ,' you know. So what happened was the creation of this mind link type shit, between you. He gets sick, and yanks on the link for your memories. You lose memory and he gets healthier. But then your mind pulls on the link for memories, and he gets sick again."

"So Pete tried to knock me out because he was trying to do a complete reset?"

"Yep. Everyone was pretty caught by surprise because the last couple times of the cycle you showed up at the last show of the tour, but since I was there I could give Pete a bit of a heads up, so Panic was on call, but nobody told Patrick or something? It was all messy, sugar. And I only told them we were coming as we got into the car."

Above them the sink is dripping cold water from a rusty faucet. Some invisible force tugs down a paper towel from the grimy counter, and Gabe picks it up and starts to fold it. Ryan's butt is starting to fall asleep on the cold tile, but he doesn't want to move. Gabe's warm against him. His arm keeps brushing Ryan's as he folds, and eventually the paper turns in on itself one last time, emerging as a crane that Gabe then grins at and hands to Ryan. It's ridiculous, just stupid. Ryan stands up and puts it in his pocket. 

"Well," Ryan starts, uncertain, holding out a hand for Gabe and tugging him to his feet, "You won't undo the curse, but you clearly helped Pete try to unravel it, and you're here answering my questions, but you also literally tried to murder Brendon and replace him in my life. And when I found out my Dad was dead, you split because you knew it would be the incident that derailed the cycle and would lead me down a new path that would eventually reveal you. Then, when you pop back up, it's to play me your own music as you drive me to my rescue attempt/kidnapping that you helped organize."

"Yes." Gabe beams, all his earlier hostility gone. "You're a philosopher, Ryan, who got tricked into making music."

"And what are you?" 

"I'm the parents," he says, "That can't tell their fucking kids apart." 

Ryan and Gabe walk back to the booth, and this time Ryan has better luck moving through the crowd. The trick, he decides, is to shimmy and not worry about who's body you touch. The singer on the stage is still working through her set, but somehow managed to half the clothing she's wearing. Gabe winks at Ryan and splits off, twirling through the crowd closer to the stage, and Ryan struggles the rest of the way to the booth where Jon and Brendon are sitting. Spencer, who looks stone sober and disapproving, has joined the two of them.

"Hey," Spencer grumbles, "Jon said you were here. This isn't the place I anticipated the gang would get back together." He scoots around so Ryan can slide into the end of the booth, which is unnervingly sticky. Jon is beaming, and he's got Brendon sitting partially on his lap, partially slung across Spencer.

That feeling Ryan was telling Gabe about, where one of them moved for all four of them, where one of them thought and all of them heard it, isn't there. It's a relief that makes him feel guilty, because it's also definitely a loss.

"God!" Brendon giggles. "It's like we don't even know each other anymore! I'm Brendon, that's Jon, Spencer, and you're Ryan, and the four of us are _Panic! At the Disco_! An international, galactic, revolutionary, musical experience. Our influence transcends the border of time!" 

Spencer rolls his eyes, but he's smiling a little bit. He elbows Ryan softly, like, remember this? Or as if to say, is this okay?

It's wrong. Everything that Ryan has swirling around in himself is saying that he isn't supposed to be around these people anymore and that he should go. He shifts in his seat and Spencer moves a little bit away, probably thinking it's his fault. When they were littler, Ryan would sit so close to Spencer that he would often be in his lap. George would hit Ryan sometimes, when George was drunk, and then Ryan would walk over to Spencer's and crawl through his window. Into his bed, his arms.

Determinedly, he scoots into Spencer's lap. Jon looks surprised and delighted, and Ryan sends him a warning glare that goes ignored. Spencer rearranges to hold him better and Ryan closes his eyes. The noise from the club throbs in the back of his head and behind his eye sockets.

At first it's awkward but then they start talking to each other, and the feeling of displacement drains slowly away until Ryan's mocking Jon ruthlessly about the hats he'd make for his cats, and Jon's mocking Ryan ruthlessly about the paisley shirts he'd wear ironically, and then Spencer mocks both of then ruthlessly about their short lived but intensely passionate obsession with.

Time passes. They avoid each other, in such a way that they are never too far apart. Ryan will tell himself he needs to leave and then he'll stay. He revolves around Spencer and Brendon, brushes his hand along Jon's arm whenever they see each other. Ryan knows that this is the most opportune chance he'll ever get to wind down this whole terrible situation, and is building himself up to it. But he doesn't want to get it over with, because what happens to him then?

The building empties. Music gets slower and slower. The singer leaves at some point. Maybe the bar is closed, but maybe it isn't. Either way nobody comes to throw the stragglers out; either way, Ryan isn't leaving while Brendon stays. 

And Brendon.

Brendon's sitting in the corner booth, in the seat right in the middle back- the crease at the joint of the _L_ \- the same spot he was in, earlier- and Ryan scoots around until they're sitting next to each other. The condiment tray is still there. He starts stacking the little rectangles of jam and peanut butter, and then adds the sugar packets to the structure until it topples sideways onto the napkins. Ryan feels like he's got complete clarity over everything that's happened to him, and Brendon looks accordingly awful. Brendon looks like a melted plastic mannequin with a drum skin pulled on top of it, the chest punctured clean through with xylophone ribs. When the condiment tower falls over for a second time, he reaches out shakily and clutches weakly for a salt package. He's so frail that it takes him a few fumbling attempts to pick it up. When he finally scoops it and drops it back with the sugar, Ryan sees his whole arm trembling. In the backdrop somewhere, back by the turntables on the elevated platform, Gabe is lying unconscious with Pete sitting next to him, both of their faces completely bleak and empty.

"I don't know what happens now." Brendon croaks out, voice thin, cracking. "You have to kill me, right? To break the circle?"

"I can't kill you." Ryan tells him, and then, perhaps more accurately,"I won't kill you." 

"If you love me, you _would_." It comes out pleadingly, and so awfully broken. Brendon's so absolutely pitiful that it hurts to look at him. He's like a homeless person on a train, or the feeling in your lungs when you see someone elderly completely alone at the hospital.

There's a beige stain on the table that's not mustard and that's not blood. Ryan's still not wearing shoes, and the beige matches his socks. He picks at the stain with his finger, and closes his eyes. This is the kind of conversation you can't take back; this is the kind of honesty so pure that it's unkind.

"Well, if _you_ loved me, you wouldn't have fucking said that." 

Brendon looks up at Ryan in surprise, eyes huge. There are veins in his cheeks, prominent and ugly. Ryan starts laughing, laughing like hell, laughing until it becomes hysterical and his giggles start coming out thin and high. Brendon cracks then, starts cackling. Brendon Urie, this venomous _vulturous_ residue, and it's hilarious.

  
Who are they? Who would they be after this?

Ryan wipes the tears from his eyes and says, "Well, so neither of us love each other. I'm glad we did this then. I'm so glad this hasn't been a huge waste of everybody's time."

That sets Brendon off again, and Jon and Spencer look up from where they'd been standing in a huddle with Patrick, Joe, and Andy. Ryan grins at them and within himself he finds a reserve of calmness and resolution. He feels the magic in his fingertips twisting through his palms and racing through his ligaments impatiently- _do something with me, feel something_ \- and he agrees with it. Whatever circle they're stuck in, it's time to fix it- properly, permanently. For real. This time.

Ryan focuses on the dampness on his hand from the tears, and goes into himself. 

Blackness greets him, but it's warm and it feels like Dylan's fur. A brief chill flashes through Ryan's whole body, and then he's suspended in the void of space, completely alone, totally blind. Vaguely he knows that people are yanking on his physical body, screaming, pleading, but they fade and fade until he's alone again.

Ryan imagines himself as a tree made out of SS drumsticks, his bark made out of white shoelaces smelling like banana smoothie, flowering NUMBER ONE GRANDMA mugs and leaves of soft green dust covers, planted sturdily in nothing, with no idea which direction the sun is but basking in its warmth anyways. 

He imagines himself in a hotel room, gently running a hand through a vest made out of fake roses and feeling impossibly sad. The roses start to grow tentacles from their buds; the tentacles are made of newspaper with George's obituary and his own bibliography. They slide up his arms and around his waist, firmly dug into his hips, and the vest raises itself to eye level before enveloping his head. 

He imagines himself standing on the claw of a seventy-foot fire dragon. There's gold coins piled around him but all he can focus on is the giant serpentine eye of the drake, all he can feel is the lance in his hand and the sulphurous smog suffocating him. His insides are rotting and made out of coal, and the dragon starts to lift Ryan up to his mouth, long needle like teeth curving into a piano key smile. 

He imagines himself sitting in the lap of Gabe Saporta, being held firmly and clinging to Gabe's shoulders desperately. He's gasping into Gabe's mouth, feeling overwhelmed and surrounded and just _desperate_ \- for anything- Gabe wraps a hand around his throat and Ryan whines high and thin; he's being picked up, dropped on his back, the hand on his neck tightens for two seconds, three, while the other hand yanks at his pants and-

He imagines himself sitting in the entrance of an alley opening into The Fields of Asphodel, making a flower crown out of pink cabbage roses. He imagines himself carving Egyptian hieroglyphs into the leg of an IKEA chair. He imagines himself forming a glass vase, blowing to inflate the bulb, and glancing back at it to check and see if it's turned into a hot air balloon like it was supposed to. He imagines two copies of Chuck Palahniuk sitting next to each other on a shelf, one of which is his and one of which is Spencer's, and arguing over who had the signed copy and who didn't.

He imagines himself playing music with his band. He remembers all that he can, all the details of quiet lovely moments he's stored for the people he would do anything for. He flips through hues of the colour blue and sets of Warped Tour and showings of Aladdin like they're records in a store, like they're colour swatches, and he imagines himself swooping an Aloe Vera plant up to his ceiling until it's framed in the light.

He collects his entire life and imagines sucking it up through his drumstick roots, travelling out through his branches and straining to the sun, and then he lets go of it. 

He lets go of everything.

He blooms and he burns up. 

He awakens. He's in a place he's never been before. An apartment. 

Men are crowed above him. 

"Hello," one says, "Your name is Ryan, and we have a lot to tell you about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> has been sitting, finished, on my hard drive for six months. jesus christ. you get into a new thing, and lose your mind i guess. it's really cool y'all have stuck around!!


End file.
